Michael Hickey - A lifetime of service to charity

Michael Hickey, Chairman CF South Tipperary & Professor Jim Egam, MMUH at the "Better Together" conference in the Galway Bay Hotel, Salthill over the weekend which launched Cystic Fibrosis Ireland's 65 Roses Week across the country, its national awareness week and fundraising appeal. The conference aimed to highlight the latest developments in cystic fibrosis care, from lung transplantation to new drug therapies, with attendees also hearing from a number of people with cystic fibrosis, some of whom have benefited directly from exciting new therapies. Volunteers will be selling pins as part of 65 Roses Week to raise much-needed funds. For more information, LoCall 1890 311 211 or visit www.cfireland.ie Photo: Joe Travers.

A Clonmel man who has worked tirelessly for families of cystic fibrosis sufferers has been given a special recognition award by Cystic Fibrosis Ireland.

A Clonmel man who has worked tirelessly for families of cystic fibrosis sufferers has been given a special recognition award by Cystic Fibrosis Ireland.

Michael Hickey lost three of his own children to CF and is father to a fourth adult child who also suffers from the condition - and he is appealing to people not to stop their generous support of the charity.

Even while coping with difficulty in his own family, Michael has been a support to other families, serving as the chairman of the Tipperary Branch of Cystic Fibrosis Ireland since 1984. In all Michael and his wife Bridie have been involved with the Tipperary branch of CFI for 47 years.

Last weekend, at Cystic Fibrosis Ireland’s ‘Better Together’ conference in Galway, Michael was honoured with the special recognition award as his friends and colleagues marked his retirement as the local branch chairman, a role he held for 27 years.

Michael was also honoured by the local regional group TLC4CF, who are fundraising for a specialised CF unit at Limerick Regional Hospital, in thanks for all his support for the project.

The awards were a special thank you to a man who has dedicated most of his life to helping and supporting others in his community and were presented by CFI ambassador and GAA pundit Joe Brolly. In all Michael was presented with three awards - two beautiful pieces of Galway crystal to mark his retirement as chairman and also in recognition of his long service, and a certificate for his achievements in fundraising with TLC4CF.

Michael modestly told The Nationalist that the awards are shared with his wife, Bridie, who has done “as much work as me if not more!” While Michael knew he was to be presented with one award it came as a surprise to receive three, he said. “I only did what any father would do, I didn’t expect it and I didn’t feel I deserved it,” he described his work with the charity over the last three decades. “If you feel you can do a bit of good for someone at least do no harm.”

Michael lives with his wife, Bridie, and their adult son, in Kilmacomma, Clonmel. The couple had five children, four of whom suffered from CF, three of them have passed away because of the condition.

While he might be retiring as chairman Michael says he will remain “very much involved” with the local CF group, under the new chairman

“I figured it was time for a younger person with new ideas,” said Michael, who will be 76 in July. The new chairman is Eddie Tuohy from Templemore.

Still supporting the charity, Michael has appealed for people not to be affected by recent scandals and to continue being as generous in their financial support for CFI as they always have been. Next month the charity will hold two fund rising events - their annual church gate collection will take place in the Clonmel area on the weekend of May 24 and 25. Also in May the charity will again join with Clonmel AC for the 10k run and walk on Sunday, May 11. Michael explained that entry fees from the run go to the athletic club while entry fees for the walk go to the charity. “I appeal to people to be generous,” Michael said.

The CF Ireland conference aimed to highlight the latest developments in cystic fibrosis care, from lung transplantation to new drug therapies, with attendees also hearing from a number of people with cystic fibrosis, some of whom have benefited directly from exciting new therapies.

The new CF unit at Limerick Regional Hospital is now under construction and fundraising is continuing to fit out the facility. It is hoped the first patients will use the specialised rooms by this time next year.

This website and its associated newspaper are full participating members of the Press Council of Ireland and supports the Office of the Press Ombudsman. This scheme in addition to defending the freedom of the press, offers readers a quick, fair and free method of dealing with complaints that they may have in relation to articles that appear on our pages. To contact the Office of the Press Ombudsman go towww.pressombudsman.ie or www.presscouncil.ie

The Nationalist provides news, events and sport features from the Clonmel area. For the best up to date information relating to Clonmel and the surrounding areas visit us at The Nationalist regularly or bookmark this page.

For you to enjoy all the features of this website The Nationalist requires permission to use cookies.

Find Out More ▼

What is a Cookie?

What is a Flash Cookie?

Can I opt out of receiving Cookies?

About our Cookies

Cookies are small data files which are sent to your browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome etc) from a website you visit. They are stored on your electronic device.

This is a type of cookie which is collected by Adobe Flash media player (it is also called a Local Shared Object) - a piece of software you may already have on your electronic device to help you watch online videos and listen to podcasts.

Yes there are a number of options available, you can set your browser either to reject all cookies, to allow only "trusted" sites to set them, or to only accept them from the site you are currently on.

However, please note - if you block/delete all cookies, some features of our websites, such as remembering your login details, or the site branding for your local newspaper may not function as a result.

The types of cookies we, our ad network and technology partners use are listed below:

Revenue Science ►

A tool used by some of our advertisers to target adverts to you based on pages you have visited in the past. To opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Google Ads ►

Our sites contain advertising from Google; these use cookies to ensure you get adverts relevant to you. You can tailor the type of ads you receive by visiting here or to opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Digital Analytics ►

This is used to help us identify unique visitors to our websites. This data is anonymous and we cannot use this to uniquely identify individuals and their usage of the sites.

Dart for Publishers ►

This comes from our ad serving technology and is used to track how many times you have seen a particular ad on our sites, so that you don't just see one advert but an even spread. This information is not used by us for any other type of audience recording or monitoring.

ComScore ►

ComScore monitor and externally verify our site traffic data for use within the advertising industry. Any data collected is anonymous statistical data and cannot be traced back to an individual.

Local Targeting ►

Our Classified websites (Photos, Motors, Jobs and Property Today) use cookies to ensure you get the correct local newspaper branding and content when you visit them. These cookies store no personally identifiable information.

Grapeshot ►

We use Grapeshot as a contextual targeting technology, allowing us to create custom groups of stories outside out of our usual site navigation. Grapeshot stores the categories of story you have been exposed to. Their privacy policy and opt out option can be accessed here.

Subscriptions Online ►

Our partner for Newspaper subscriptions online stores data from the forms you complete in these to increase the usability of the site and enhance user experience.

Add This ►

Add This provides the social networking widget found in many of our pages. This widget gives you the tools to bookmark our websites, blog, share, tweet and email our content to a friend.